The Maltese Falcon is the first movie directed by John Huston who in his illustrious career was nominated for 15 Oscars. The beauty of the film is that there is not a single waste line nor a single waste shot nor a single waste performance. Everything is so perfect & each character is very well developed. I felt Huston has filtered the movie like water, over & over, until it became so perfect.
The performances in the movie were of the highest order.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy is not your typical film noir femme fatale as this is only the start of bigstudio film noir. I felt that Brigid O'Shaughnessy was the perfect template for the future femme fatales such as say Double Indemnity's Phyllis Dietrichson or Vertigo's Madeleine Elster. Although Brigid …show more content…
That he didn't even get an Oscar nomination for this is quite a puzzle for me. Either the real nominees have given all-time greatest performances or the Academy is dumb. Bogart's Sam Spade is one of the meanest, ruthless heroes that you will see. I heard that the original Sam Spade in the novel was a 6 feet heavy built figure. Bogart is not a big person physically but he more than makes it up with his voice & mannerisms. See that scene where he mocks his partner's widow by saying "You killed my husband Sam. Be kind to me". His clap, his smile & his subtle expressions in that scene were as mean as you could see anywhere. Or that scene where he says "Ya with $10000 insurance, no children & a wife who doesn't like him" about his dead partner. Or the scene where he says "When you're slapped, you'll take it & like it" and slaps Joel Cairo. Bogart's Sam Spade is arguably the most ungenerous & masculine character until Marlon Brando gave that tour de force performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar named Desire. In a way, even Sam Spade was not a complete film noir protagonist because he was always in control of the situation except for that one scene in which he is intoxicated. Even there I didn't felt that he could be harmed.
Think about the fact that Bogart was not even the first choice to play Sam
The performances in the movie were of the highest order.
Brigid O'Shaughnessy is not your typical film noir femme fatale as this is only the start of bigstudio film noir. I felt that Brigid O'Shaughnessy was the perfect template for the future femme fatales such as say Double Indemnity's Phyllis Dietrichson or Vertigo's Madeleine Elster. Although Brigid …show more content…
That he didn't even get an Oscar nomination for this is quite a puzzle for me. Either the real nominees have given all-time greatest performances or the Academy is dumb. Bogart's Sam Spade is one of the meanest, ruthless heroes that you will see. I heard that the original Sam Spade in the novel was a 6 feet heavy built figure. Bogart is not a big person physically but he more than makes it up with his voice & mannerisms. See that scene where he mocks his partner's widow by saying "You killed my husband Sam. Be kind to me". His clap, his smile & his subtle expressions in that scene were as mean as you could see anywhere. Or that scene where he says "Ya with $10000 insurance, no children & a wife who doesn't like him" about his dead partner. Or the scene where he says "When you're slapped, you'll take it & like it" and slaps Joel Cairo. Bogart's Sam Spade is arguably the most ungenerous & masculine character until Marlon Brando gave that tour de force performance as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar named Desire. In a way, even Sam Spade was not a complete film noir protagonist because he was always in control of the situation except for that one scene in which he is intoxicated. Even there I didn't felt that he could be harmed.
Think about the fact that Bogart was not even the first choice to play Sam